


Before the Night

by sunhounds



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, M/M, Transform or Treat, Transform or Treat 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27237763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunhounds/pseuds/sunhounds
Summary: Knock Out and Breakdown decide to watch horror movies for Halloween in their shared quarters. But Knock Out's appreciation of Cybertronian anatomy is called into question when he's repulsed by the gore in their selected movie. Gentle ribbing from Breakdown ensues.
Relationships: Breakdown/Knock Out (Transformers)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	Before the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @g1bumblebee on tumblr as part of "Transform or Treat 2020"! Rating is "teen and up" for vague descriptions of movie gore and Knock Out waxing poetry for multiple paragraphs about how pretty Cybertronian internal anatomy is.

Jasper was not a town known for its booming population, assuming one had heard of it. It was deceptively easy, then, to underestimate the size of the population there. A few hundred, maybe. Could be less than a hundred. 

It took the month of October to remind everyone that Jasper, while a small town, still had several thousand residents who committed to the spirit of Halloween in varying degrees. 

Knock Out appreciated drives around the city, if only to scope out what car models were present and inwardly critique them, and it was on these drives that he found out humans _really_ liked Halloween. Houses upon houses he drove past would be covered in fake cobwebs, massive spiders, skeletons, props of zombies, and -- found on almost every porch -- carved pumpkins with candles lit within. The designs carved into the gourds were always different and exemplified various skill levels: some were generic stencil designs, carved by cautious and hesitant hands and leaving behind jagged, linear edges, while others were freehanded, edges smoothed to a fault. Some were extra fancy and shaved off portions of the outer wall so the candle glow shone through more fiercely. 

He learned more about the adoration of Halloween when the day finally arrived and he was made to realize he, too, had fallen prey to underestimation. It took till sundown for the holiday to show its true colors. At dusk, the streets were littered with humans in costumes -- some cartoony and kiddish, others modeled after fictional murderers, yet others modeled after folklore and myths and cryptids (a particularly adventurous costumer had made themself into Mothman). They went door-to-door in roving packs of three or more and solicited candy. There were enough running amuck that he couldn't drive through the streets like he wanted to, which was positively awful. 

Some, though, opted out of "trick-or-treating," as he learned, and bypassed the affair entirely, buying candy and watching movies or hosting parties. 

Unfortunately, some opted to watch their movies at the drive-in theater. 

_His_ drive-in theater. 

How positively _awful_. 

So he stayed aboard the Nemesis in his shared quarters with Breakdown as the day ground to a close, dusk filtering in and staining all it touched a deep orange. And with Breakdown at his side, they watched the horror movies they'd obtained _entirely legally_ as per human laws while burning through their troves of candy.  


Candy that they had also obtained _entirely legally_ as per Cybertronian laws. 

Breakdown had stolen away a cache of his Kaon Fireballs, which were energon candies mixed with picrate and coated in a veneer of ether crystals to provide the burn it was well loved for. Despite the name of "Fireball," they weren't spherical, but rather more flat and disc-shaped. And despite the name, they were colored in swirls of electric blue and yellow, with the crystals on the surface adding a bright gleam. 

Knock Out opted for something more sophisticated than what the holiday typically called for: his coveted Iacon truffles, stored away in a freezer in the dark to reduce any degradation. They were composed of energon milled to a silky smooth powder mixed with fuel line detergents before being pressed into spheres. Soft, lustrous graphite dusted the surface and imparted a dark grey sheen to the candies, tinting them an overall grey-blue. Of course, such a shine would only be visible after peeling back the rosy foil vacuum wrapped around them.  


They had done an extensive amount of research for the holiday in order to accurately emulate the experience in the comforts of their quarters (read: they had spent two hours total looking at websites about good horror movies before saying "who _cares?_ " and pirating a movie they both thought would be good [read: they pirated a movie Knock Out thought would be good]). The atmosphere was extensively cultivated to provide the maximum sense of terror so as to fit the holiday (read: it was dark and the movie was loud). Breakdown had even went so far as to make a costume of his own, which was a Vehicon face mask (upon showing it off, one Vehicon disappeared for an hour before returning with a paper mask of Breakdown's face). Knock Out didn't dare use adhesives on his finish, and the idea of painting on it was unfathomable, so he politely refrained from this practice. 

Why they chose to celebrate Halloween, a human holiday, was for a specific reason. The Cybertronian equivalent was a far grimmer affair: Allwick's Eve, when the presence of Unicron was most strongly felt on Cybertron. The sparks of the dead would arise from their graves and mete out judgment and gifts (but usually judgment) on those who survived them. It was customary to leave a gift -- some argued energon sufficed, others said it needed to be energon and quotations from the Covenant of Primus -- on the memorials of the deceased. It was a mourning holiday as well as a remembrance one, equal parts hope for the future and fear of the past. Hence the eschewing of the Cybertronian funerary day for the human candy-grabbing, pumpkin-stabbing, horror movie-watching one that they could partake in in the comforts of their room. 

The movie they (read: Knock Out) had selected was a particularly gory one involving a space crew beleaguered by an alien. Half of the action came and went with nary a remark, though, as the duo spent their time harassing the other. Breakdown took to leaning over Knock Out to steal his candy as Knock Out slapped at his hand and put on the most offended face he could manage. Knock Out, conversely, took to ripping off shreds of his candy's foil packaging, balling it, and flicking it at Breakdown, who swatted it away and cursed at Knock Out with a laugh. 

Despite that, it became clear that humans had the same phobias as Cybertronians. And it would soon be clear that the movie had brought out a phobia Knock Out hadn't been aware of. He cringed and looked away, grinding his jaw and hissing out an "eughhhhh" as the titular alien erupted from a crew member's chest, making their innards their out-ards in a confetti-burst of blood as their crew mates screamed in terror. 

Breakdown was unfazed, though he cocked an eyebrow at Knock Out with a bemused smile. "What'sa matter, doc bot?" He was sitting on the bed cross-legged (much to Knock Out's annoyance, though he let it slide) while Knock Out laid down on his abdomen, propping up his chest with pillows to prevent scuffing. He had his legs kicked into the air, wheels tapping the back of his thighs. The flickering lights of the movie exaggerated Breakdown's facial features. Knock Out noted he looked like the jack-o-lanterns set out along the road, all orange with yellow, glowing eyes. 

"It's nothing," he muttered, picking out a candy from his bag and peeling back the foil, "just... squeamish." That wasn't the word he wanted, but it sufficed. 

"Squeamish? _You?_ " Breakdown snorted. "You're a surgeon!" 

He rolled his eyes before stuffing the candy in his mouth. "Well, _clearly_ , but I operate on Cybertronians, not..." he waved his fingers at the screen, " _humans._ " 

Breakdown squinted at the screen. "Looks... the same to me, but red." 

"Well, it's not!" 

"How?" 

"It just... is." 

"Sure, but... they look the exact _same_ , jus' one's red and one's blue and... gray." Breakdown shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, the human stuff _is_ gross, but so is the Cybertronian stuff." 

Knock Out noted some of the base elements were the same. 

The human heart, the Cybertronian pump and spark. Human blood, Cybertronian energon. Brains were brains and spines were spines across the board. Tendons to struts, neurons to wires, muscles to cables, eyes to optics, pupils to apertures, skin to mesh. 

But base concepts were the same across almost all species. Almost all species needed a heart, a brain, a transport fluid, muscles. 

It was beyond the basics that Cybertronians and humans departed. 

Internally, he acknowledged the similarities. Externally -- 

"They're different, _trust me_." He watched the movie, perceiving the ongoing motion but not paying attention, having been ripped from the plot and into this question. When Breakdown wasn't looking, he stole a piece of his candy and stuffed it into his mouth, the spicy burn diverting his attention from the movie further, then continued. "The basics are the same, but there's more differences than similarities. Humans don't have internal chronometers, _we_ don't have the... weird squiggly things they call intestines, humans obviously don't have a t-cog, or an internal compass, or an ID, or a spark, or coolant, or hydraulics, and we don't have lungs. Completely different." 

Breakdown paused. He mulled the question over while chewing his own candy. "Sure." 

"It's like... you ever heard of surgeons who _don't_ want to be vets, and vice versa? Despite the anatomy being 90% the same? And they say it's different somehow? Same thing here." 

"I guess, but we're talking about _you_ here. I don't think it's just humans being squishy that's throwing you off." 

Knock Out scowled, now hyper-aware of the candy's dissolving surface scraping on his teeth. Breakdown was right and he didn't like that. And he now wondered if Breakdown had noticed his morbid curiosity with humans, in the same way some mechs had a fascination with the dead, disease, all other things they were inwardly scared of. As if knowledge of the thing, how the thing worked, how it could go wrong, would stave off the fear of it. He kept grinding his jaw, whittling down the candy, trying to hack at whatever his deep-seated aversion was to hopefully defend himself. 

"They're just so... I don't know," he said after a long pause. He found himself suddenly fixated on the cheesy gore fest in the movie as he spoke, staring at the arcs of far too red and far too viscous blood. "They're -- everything's connected with humans, not like Cybertronians. You can replace t-cogs, you can replace frequency modulators, you can replace black boxes, hardware accelerators, filters, coolant, hydraulic fluid, and if you're in bad enough straits, you can replace your brain, all with relative ease. You can disconnect and reconnect things with ease in Cybertronians. Half the diagnostics I run involve disconnecting parts and rerunning probes to see what changed and what didn't. With humans... if something goes wrong in one organ, it affects everything, and everything is difficult or impossible to replace. Humans get massive systemic responses if, I don't know, if they eat the wrong thing or they inhale the wrong thing or they hit the ground at the wrong angle from a slightly too-high altitude. You don't go into systemic shock because your frequency modulator gets dust in it. Your brain doesn't start frying if the hydraulics get cross-contaminated. Your spark doesn't immediately begin to fade if your chronometer goes awry. 

"And they aren't _durable._ Cybertronians -- you can drop parts on the floor and have a 90% and higher chance it'll still be functioning. Even sparks. Even brains, though neither are _ideal._ We can have those parts exposed forever and never have problems, but humans start having problems the second a mesh injury -- no, a skin injury -- stays open for too long." He found himself rambling, but Breakdown made no motion to stop him. In fact, he was invested in it. 

"And... I don't know, Cybertronian anatomy is organized. It's all parceled out and neatly organized and color-coded. Your frequency modulator is always orange. The black box is always black. The hardware accelerator is always red. The vital functions backup is always a disc with a red light. Energon filters are always a silver blue mesh. With humans, it's -- it's just... _stuff._ There's no distinct shapes, there's no diagonals or angles or points, it's just all smooth lines and weird shapes. Cybertronians? Everything's angled, everything's a defined shape, and if it's not that shape, something's wrong. The Cybertronian body is proof of Primus. It's a work of art. Humans? Proof of Unicron. Messy, jumbled nonsense." 

Breakdown fell silent as he contemplated Knock Out's response. Tinned screams echoed from the TV set. Knock Out tapped his fingers against the bed, noting that the room felt oddly quiet as his partner thought. When tapping the bed didn't cut it, he turned to balling up the foil and straightening it out over and over. He stared at his forearm, his hands, observing how his paint job alternated from wine red to cherry as the lighting in the movie fluctuated. If he focused, he could feel the gears, cables, pivots, and pistons in his fingers work in harmony as he toyed with the foil. 

"... Besides," Knock Out muttered, "I'm not exactly cutting into humans on the daily." 

To his relief, Breakdown accepted this response. "I get that," he said with a nod. "I get it. Strange how it works, but... I get it. It's different when it's something you're passionate about." There was another pause before Knock Out felt a hand on his back tire, Breakdown's thumb smoothing over the rim and rubbing worried circles into it. "Do we need to skip this one, doc?"  


Knock Out chuckled, reaching up to hold Breakdown's hand, only for the other to move his hand to Knock Out's headlight segments and meet him halfway. He laid his hand atop the other's, leaning on Breakdown's forearm with a content smile as he cherished the warmth. He didn't need to look back to know Breakdown was smiling back. "No, no, dear, I think I'll be fine for now. Besides, it's almost done." 

"You certain?" 

"I'm certain." 

He felt Breakdown nod. "A'ight then." A gentle squeeze. "Just got concerned for a second there, but glad to know you're alright." 

Knock Out nodded. 

The hand did not move. 

There was another pause. 

A nervous cough from Breakdown, followed by a stammered out, "Hey, doc bot?" 

"Yes, Breakdown?" 

"... Love ya, doc bot." 

Knock Out chuckled and shook his head as a smile etched itself on his face. "Love you too, big bot." 

For the rest of the movie, throughout the onslaught of fake blood and tinned screams, the hand did not move. 

And for the next movie, a first-person film shot in a haunted forest, his hand moved away, only to be followed seconds later by him sidling up next to Knock Out, stealing mountains of pillows to prop himself up as he sprawled out on his abdomen. With no small degree of grace, he swept Knock Out's hand up and into his own, lacing fingers together and giving a gentle squeeze. A soft smile bloomed across his face, his yellow eyes creasing into highlighter thin lines. 

And despite the movie, despite how horrifying Knock Out found it, despite how often it made him jump and yelp and swear,

he felt right at home with Breakdown.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to "Before the Night" by HOME while writing the bulk of this, hence the title. It's a good song!   
> This was proofread by the inimitable Hannz over at @thanksjro on tumblr. Thank you for correcting my crimes against grammar!


End file.
